Can Coinstar Reinvent the Vending Machine?

When momentum slowed last year in Coinstar's Redbox DVD-rental business, investors may have flashed back to scenes from “Nightmare on Elm Street.” Was the company in the bad dream everyone feared was coming? And worse, would it be dead before it could wake up?

Long has the kiosk maker battled an undercurrent of market worries about its growth prospects once DVDs start going the way of the dodo. Shares lost nearly a quarter of their value in the second half of last year as abating growth in Redbox rentals made some wonder if the DVD-kiosk business was at the beginning of its end.

Coinstar sought to shake everyone out of that troubled sleep today, as it presented a plan of reinvention it believes will double its revenue to $4 billion in five years. It is plowing ahead with new automated-retail machines in new sectors and figuring out ways that its traditional kiosks — DVD-rentals and coin counters — can do more.

In its legacy businesses, it is expanding what machines can do. At coin machines, it is widening a partnership that essentially lets customers use the kiosks like ATMs for PayPal accounts, and it wants to meld a gift-card exchange in as well. At Redbox, a joint venture with Verizon Communications Inc. combines Redbox physical DVD rentals with streaming content, and it is also testing local-event ticketing in a couple cities.

Anne Saunders, the president of Redbox, envisions that customers 10 years from now won’t even remember that the Redbox business began with physical DVDs.

New ventures could be even more transformational. Coinstar is developing kiosks in new consumer sectors like food and beverage and electronics, that it believes hold about $16 billion in possible consumer spending on automated options. Furthest along are Rubi coffee dispensers, machines that make multiple drinks with Starbucks Corp's Seattle’s Best coffee. It projects an $800 million market for automated out-of-home coffee, creating space for as many as 70,000 kiosks.

By comparison, there are about 43,700 Redbox machines now, and that’s nearly the point of saturation. Coinstar is significantly slowing its rate of new installs, instead aiming to drive revenue growth with increased customer visits and the new products on the machines.

But the fail rate for new automated retail ventures is bleak. Scott Di Valerio, the company’s financial chief set to become CEO, even says they have a “very low” rate of success. He’s hoping Coinstar—with its built-in expertise getting Redbox and coin machines to thrive—is ahead of the curve.

Yet not all Coinstar’s kiosks have hit the right notes. Coinstar abandoned one called Chirp, which sold fashion accessories like handbags at a discount, because performance metrics fell short of targets designed to mimic the return on investment at Redbox and the coin machines.

The company intends to stay just as stringent about its slew of new ventures as they begin spreading out into the world at large. It’s one reason Coinstar believes return on invested capital can increase to 20% in three years from 18.4% now, even as the reinvention is sure to bring stumbles as the company learns completely new sectors.

Investors, for now, seem to be giving Coinstar’s vision the benefit of the doubt. Shares rose 5.2% today.